Have you ever had a nightmare about being trapped in a dark bathroom? How about being lost in a dark space, while being chased by something scary? I know that I have. I used to have nightmares involving E.T. chasing me around our dining room as a kid, because I was creeped out by a doll of the iconic alien that my cousin left at our house.
The relatively new game, The Bathrooms, from developer and publisher, Take IT! Studio, uses similar nightmares as inspiration for its interactive fare. What results is a liminal space horror game, wherein you’re constantly rushed, sometimes confused and often lost. It tries to create tension through ever changing environments, the loss of light, and a dangerous presence.
This isn’t a ‘story game,’ per se, as it’s more of a short burst, and almost run-based, survival game with strange designs and mechanics. That said, there is a bit of story to be found within it, if you look and find the odd note.
After an ordinary trip to work with your dog, you wake up outside of your vehicle, in a small park that is close to a school. There’s dog food, and a red balloon, not far from the car, but the dog is missing. Then, you realize that your goal is to enter the large school, which is decorated for some sort of Halloween event (or ritual?).
The school building is eerily vacant, and there’s an odd painting under a cover. Not long afterwards, the unnamed player character falls into an odd pit, and ends up in a massive, ever changing, bathroom. Nothing makes sense, little is clear and it feels like a bad LSD trip.
After awakening in a dark stall, one must turn their flashlight on and then find some copium nearby. Inhaling copium, which can be purchased from vending machines, keeps you going and helps increase the amount of money you can find, while also offering a speed boost. Failure to maintain one’s copium blood meter will not have good results.
After this, the power goes out, and must be turned on by priming a breaker and pressing a button beside it. Such breakers are scattered throughout this (at least seemingly) ever changing nightmare lavatory, and using them can extend the amount of time that the power will stay on. When it goes out, it’s a mad rush to find one. The flashlight is pretty weak.
The idea behind The Bathrooms is that the unnamed character is trapped inside this hellish version of what is an important room in any home, office, event space or hotel room. This normally relaxing place is turned on its head, forcing the player to try to find a means to escape.
For whatever reason, there are pots of gold hidden behind almost every closed stall door, as well as in ‘wishing wells’ and numerous slot machines dotted throughout the location. These slot machines were a great way to earn money, and I always gravitated towards them, but I lost a good amount of money whenever the jester icon would appear.
The money is important, because you must purchase a ticket to escape through a golden toilet. In order to earn a lot of it, though, you’ll want to buy a vacuum, which can suck up pots of moolah. Upgrading its power, and paying to unlock the golden vacuum, will allow you to open stall doors and suck all of their riches out without having to manually do it by pressing X, which is obviously slower.
There are other aspects to this game, too, and you’re rated on how well you do. Earlier in this review, I spoke about the dog — a Shibu Inu —which disappears from your car. It’s been trapped in a cage of its own, and finding at least two colour coded keys is the way to rescue it. The amount of keys required will depend on the difficulty (easy, normal, hard or nightmare) you’ve chosen to play on. However, they are pretty hard to find and seem to randomly generate.
There is also a blue orb that can be used to help locate things, or check for danger. When it was equipped, I would see a blue arrow. However, it seemed to point to the exit, as opposed to keys. Maybe I didn’t use it right.
You may be thinking that this doesn’t sound too difficult, or all that scary. Well, what if I told you that there’s a custodian who looks like an evil jester (medieval clown) who lurks in The Bathrooms? Yeah…
The aforementioned notes seem to suggest that clowns were spotted near the school, before people (students, maybe) started to disappear. I may be wrong, though, because I only saw two, and read them briefly while trying to quickly escape. This isn’t a story driven game, though. It’s more of an arcade experience. That said, it seems to give a bit of backstory pertaining to the Caretaker, his evil jester inspired look and everything.
The Caretaker appears kind of at random, but if you haven’t seen him in a few minutes it’s best to get ready for an appearance. He’s fast, will chase you and seems almost impossible to get away from unless you walk through a portal and end up elsewhere.
Well, there is one other way to get rid of the evil jerk, but it’s not always available. You see, there’s a shop located near the exit, and the room in which the doggy is locked up and barking his head off. That’s where one can purchase the aforementioned golden vacuum, or buy upgrades for the vacuum’s power or the player’s copium usage. At that store, you’ll also find a gun that temporarily defeats evil jesters. The catch is that ammo is limited, meaning it cannot be relied upon a lot. On top of that, you have to aim at and hit him in specific spots, which are highlighted by green circles. On normal, this takes two targeted shots, whereas it only takes one on easy. It isn’t always as easy as it sounds either, though this game does feature a first-person viewpoint. That’s because of how quickly he’s moving, and how little time you have to pull the gun out, turn around and shoot him.
I was originally much more scared of the Caretaker than need be. This is due to the fact that, after being caught and carried out on a stretcher by he and his creepy jester friends, I woke up in a cage and was able to continue, having only lost some money. There was a sticky note with a number on it, and that told me how many continues I had left. Of course, this number differed on normal and easy, the latter of which was more generous.
This took some of the fear and anxiety out of the game, since I discovered it wasn’t just a one and done thing (except for on nightmare, which has permadeath). Still, I sucked at The Bathrooms and have only finished it on easy thus far. I didn’t even realize I had, either. I’d paid the ticket taker the owed amount, explored a bit and then noticed a golden toilet, after thinking nothing had happened. I went through the toilet, ended up back in the school, read a note, uncovered a painting, and then was attacked. Then it said I’d beat the game.
I played this thing a couple of times, and did several runs. The first attempt was while something else was installing. I’d planned to continue and try again, until I beat it, before moving on. However, the restart or quit (aka game over) menu did not work. It never worked. This meant that I had to close the game, and then had to launch it again when I wanted to play more.
The frame rate would also occasionally drop when the lights went out, causing a delay.
I don’t think anyone would expect a small game like this to look or sound amazing, neither of which are true of this particular one. It features pretty basic 3D visuals, and uses light, darkness and coloured filters to its advantage; not to mention an environment that seems to morph and change. Meanwhile, the audio is effectively creepy enough, with screams, creaks, footsteps and maniacal laughing, as well as the dog’s repeated barks when you’re nearby. This isn’t a visual or audible showcase, and that’s OK.
I didn’t really know what to expect from The Bathrooms, but kind of enjoyed it. Although it’s basic and weird, it is kind of fun and addictive. However, there isn’t a lot to this game, and it doesn’t control super well. It also doesn’t make a lot of sense, or explain things in great detail. At the end of the day, it’s an odd, niche experience, which will appeal to a certain type of gamer.
This review is based on the XBOX Series X version of the game, which we were provided with.